ATLANTIC CITY, NJ The American Hotel and Motel Association s Chairman, John Russell, tried to mend some fences between his national industry organization and the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) at the 2001 AAHOA convention currently underway here.
Specifically, Russell cited a need to unify the industry s voices, and create a broad coalition in order to get the lodging industry s message across to Congress. As such, he said this unity of purpose could lead to more legislative games for the industry, like yesterday s congressional appeal of the proposed ergonomics/repetitive tasks legislation, which he said could end up saving the industry billions of dollars.
Russell s parting message to the 1,000-plus attendees at this morning s general session was, We all bleed red and spend green. We re fighting the same fight to the benefit of all of us. His conclusion? Separately we re good, together we re great. (3/8/01) Michael Billig